Letter: Honor Flight Buffalo does great job for vets

I’m saying a prayer of gratitude today for distinguished World War II veterans, including my father, the Rev. Charles W. Hobbs Sr., Honor Flight Buffalo ﻿and a multitude of enthusiastic volunteers who made an amazing experience possible for all of those noble veterans on May 3.

Imagine a crowd of senior soldiers in wheelchairs being escorted through channels of cheering, flag-flying civilians welcoming them home from a war fought 70 years ago. These soldiers gave the greatest love of all, and represent those who gave that love and didn’t come home, and those who came home but didn’t live long enough to be honored for their sacrifice.

Long ago, this fierce force with thick hair and determined gait waved goodbye to moms and dads, wives and babies to fight the war that threatened the freedom of those they loved best. On Saturday, this force returned home from a tour of duty to witness the memorial that commemorates their courage and tenacity during a war that claimed 400,000 of their noblest countrymen. These heroes, with the aid of God, succeeded in securing life and liberty for yet another generation still to follow.

We are that generation. And I am overwhelmed. I hear a bugler playing taps at Arlington National Cemetery’s changing of the guard, and I understand. It is a changing of the guard in the battle for liberty as well. Pilgrims and patriots have fought for certain unalienable rights for generations, and have passed the baton of responsibility to their heirs. In my soul, I know my turn has come. Our fathers resisted tyranny and, by God’s grace, they overcame. Now it’s our turn to fight for the preservation of the liberties defined by the Constitution. The baton’s been passed; we, too, must fight, and by God’s grace we, too, must overcome.